


Dad

by wafflelate



Series: Dark Fire [3]
Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gardens, Dimension Travel, Family, Gen, Human Emotions - Positive, Post-Split
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: When she's as ready as she'll ever be (and very, very tired of camping) Shikako turns up at Konoha's front gates and turns herself in.
Relationships: Nara Shikako & Nara Shikaku, Nara Shikako & Nara Shikaku & Nara Yoshino
Series: Dark Fire [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1369123
Comments: 32
Kudos: 524
Collections: Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection, Robot Rainbow 2020





	Dad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartbeatstumbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartbeatstumbles/gifts).



> I checked the requests from the last round of the exchange and you opted into receiving fic based on the dark fire will not avail you, so I hope this is alright!

When she's as ready as she'll ever be (and very, very tired of camping) Shikako turns up at Konoha's front gates and turns herself in. 

What she knows about where she is before she gets to T&I is a very short list: Tsunade is Hokage here, the Dead Wastes have a Garden of Life from Death so Shikako's almost certainly been in this universe before, and there aren't any major, obvious wars going on. 

What she knows almost immediately after she's turned herself in: she's probably had a lot of contact with this Konoha. A concealed ANBU makes a direct line for the Hokage's tower when she appears. No one comes to even visually inspect her seals when she's showering under the polite eyes of a female T&I agent whose name Shikako can't remember. She's lead immediately to a dedicated interview room and food is provided. Some version of Morino Ibiki lurks behind the one-way glass before she even arrives, his chakra signature tauntingly familiar. 

Shikako kind of expects Tsunade to join her, but it's not Tsunade who approaches and opens the door. It's Nara Shikaku. 

She forces herself to look at him. He's older than her own dad. She can't really _tell_ , but she's checked and double checked the current date here, so she's sure it's just...factually true. He's older, and he's a stranger. He's carrying a file folder and a stubby pencil. He's dressed for a day at the office, except that he's completely unarmed. That's standard procedure. 

Nara Shikaku sits down across from her. He opens his file. He asks for her name, her ID number, her rank, her age. 

She tells him all of that except for her age — when he asks her about that, she has to say, "I don't know." 

His pencil pauses in surprise. "You don't?" he questions. 

Shikako shrugs a shoulder and sinks down a little in her chair. "Probably 14," she says. "Maybe." 

He writes something down. From the movement of his pencil, probably something like _14(?)_ that will frustrate whoever next gets their hands on the intake form. 

"How long has it been," Shikaku asks, "since you were in Land of Wind with Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Hikaku, and Kankurō of Suna?" 

The air very briefly goes out of the room. 

Of course. 

"I don't know." She'd promised herself she'd cooperate. "A long time." She hadn't ever even tried to keep count. 

"Months?" this man who is not her father prods. 

She could say yes. Yes, it had been months. It had been. Months here and months there — she had stopped hurrying after awhile, once she had figured out it wasn't a problem she could speedrun. But it hadn't been just months. "Longer," she says, even though she doesn't want to think about it. Much, _much_ longer. 

"I see," Nara Shikaku says. He closes his folder and tucks his pencil away. 

Shikako has been politely keeping her hands on top of the table, where all and sundry can see them, because she appreciates that they hadn't been shackled down to keep them there. Now, Nara Shikako reaches out and lays his hands on top of hers. She has seen her own father do this for clanmates in distress, but looking at the gesture now from this angle and in this situation it feels alien. 

It's been so long since she's seen her father. Almost as long as it's been since she's seen this version of Nara Shikaku, who once helped Sai free her from T&I. 

His hands squeeze hers. He says, "Are you going to leave again?" 

Implied, Shikako thinks, is an offer to help again. 

There's a lump in her throat. "There's nowhere to go." 

One of his hands reaches towards her face. He brushes her bangs away from her face — the bangs her father had always said made her look like her mom — and he promises her: "Shikako, a Nara always has a place to go." 

Shikako isn't crying, but it's a near thing. "I'm tired." Her voice cracks. 

"That's okay," Shikaku tells her. "You can rest at home. We just have to go see the Hokage." 

He stands up and he looks at her like he expects her to stand up as well, so she does. She stands and follows him to the door, and she moves carefully while she does it. Shikako's had a lot of practice crossing a room without looking threatening. She keeps her hands lax and visible. 

It's good that Shikaku can just open the door and walk out with her. It means he has a stable position in the village despite what Shikako set off here last time. Shikaku picks his gear up from the table outside the interrogation room and then they head straight for Tsunade's office — the secretary doesn't try to stop them or even announce them. 

Tsunade is standing, leaning against the wall behind her desk and looking out at the village. Her chakra is smooth and sharp, like a well-formed surgical instrument. Tightly controlled. She and Shikako make eye contact in the window before Tsunade turns to look at Shikaku. 

"It's her?" Tsunade asks. 

Shikaku nods. "This is Nara Shikako." 

Tsunade gives her a long look over, for which Shikako holds extremely still. "Good," Tsunade says at last. "She doesn't have the security clearance to be alone in the village, but you can handle that. The Uchiha will help. Go home." Then to Shikako — in somehow the least ominous manner possible, almost softly — she says, "We'll talk later." 

They walk to the Nara compound. Shikako hadn't been asked to change into T&I clothes this time (maybe because she hadn't arrived covered in blood) so except for her lack of clan mon or forehead protector she blends in with the crowds, more or less. No one really looks at her when Shikaku is there, anyway. 

The streets are a little different, maybe from different damage during the Chūnin Exams. The clan gate is the same, well-kept well-weathered wood moved from where the clan had lived before the village. It even casts a familiar afternoon shadow. 

Tears are slipping down her face even before they turn to go straight to the main house. Her hands shake when she's stepped into the genkan behind Shikaku and has to close the door before she can lean down and undo her shoes. 

Shikaku calls our that they're home. Someone drops something further in the house, and then Nara Yoshino is there with her hair pulled back and her sleeves rolled up. Shikamaru doesn't appear right after her, like Shikako was expecting, but he might not even be in the village. It's just the three of them, and maybe that's for the best because the genkan can only hold so many people, and they're all momentarily frozen in place. 

"Shikako," Yoshino says. She looks like she might have cried recently. 

"Hi," Shikako says. She struggles for something to say, and comes up with nothing to fall back on but the most base of manners, as if this woman is a stranger. She adds, "I'm sorry to impose. On such short notice." 

Nara Yoshino doesn't let her say anything more. She descends the single step into the genkan, brushes past Shikaku, and drags Shikako into her arms without hesitation. 

If Shikako had ever allowed herself to imagine a moment like this, she might have imagined having to restrain some instinctual violence — but that's not the case at all. Shikako's body remembers this, is happy to confuse this woman for her mother, is glad to relax into the hug. When Shikaku joins them, his touch light and unrestrictive even as their shadows overlap tightly on the floor, Shikako feels for the first time that this might be okay. 


End file.
